Demon's Virtue
Chapter 53 - Boar’s Leg

[A possible name has been chosen for you. Do you want to be named <Eiro>?]

After this notification appeared, the Imp slowly read through it and then couldn't help himself but slightly smile in response.

"Of course."

[You are now <Eiro>]

Slowly, the Imp turned toward the Children around him and then stood up. "Thank you for giving me a name." The Imp told them, and it seemed to be hard for these Children to hide their joy at their suggestion being accepted.

But then, one of them asked a pretty important question. "And... What next?" Arc asked with a bright smile, like he always wore on his lips, all the whilst both Leon and the Priestess started crying at roughly the same time.

"For now, let's eat." The Imp suggested, slowly standing back up before drying his hand by waving it back and forth, and him and the children made their way back to the Carriage, where Rudy quickly grabbed a few different things from inside.

"Th-There's one thing I want to try, then..." He muttered quietly, holding the cookbook in his hands. "While I'm preparing everything in here, can one of you here get some fire-wood?" The plump boy asked with a nervous expression, obviously both excited and scared to make food for the others for the first time.

"I will go." The Imp said with a clear tone in his voice, already trying to take a look around to see if there was anything around that could be of use, although he then also noticed that the others seemed rather conflicted about it. They were probably worried about being left alone, but luckily, Arc tuned in not long after he noticed this as well.

"Alright, go already! We'll be fine for a few minutes!" The young boy exclaimed and pushed his arm forward while giving the Imp, now known as Eiro, a thumbs-up.

With a slow nod, the Imp then just turned around and left toward the bushes around them so that he could pass through into the woods. It didn't really take that long to replace a fair amount of suitable firewood, the issue was more about trying to carry it properly, with his hand in the state it was. He couldn't bend his fingers properly right now, so he mainly just used his stiff hand to push the wood against his chest to keep it in place.

But just then, Eiro saw a piece of wood that seemed just perfect! It seemed kind of out of place though, mostly because it had a very different color to the wood that the Imp was carrying so far. Although before he knew it, the piece of wood was pulled away through the bush it was sticking out from, and the Imp could hear a voice on the other side, making him immediately hide.

"Ah, here it was... I nearly thought I lost it..." A shaking, male voice said, before slow footsteps could be heard, muffled by the heavy breathing of what seemed to be an animal, which the Imp could swiftly confirm by stealing a glance from inbetween a gap in the bush he was hiding behind of.

Eiro's Stealth skill was pretty high, so it should allow him to stay here properly hidden until that old man finished the boar off with that weird weapon of his.

But to the Imp's surprise... the old man didn't try to kill the boar at all. Instead, he was carving into the piece of wood, simply calmly sitting right next to the boar. Eiro had some quite weird feeling about this old man, although he couldn't directly pin-point it right now.

If he wanted to replace that out, he had to try and move around the small clearing to maybe get a proper look, although it seemed like Eiro had already been noticed.

"Isn't it kind of rude to spy on a defenseless old man such as myself?" He asked, and the Imp's body immediately froze up.

"Haha, there's no need to try and deny it. I already know you're there." The old man chuckled, and the young demon ground his teeth together and stood up. "How did you know?"

"I heard you, how else?" Replied the man quite swiftly, and the Imp held his dagger tightly, simply not believing that. "How could you know I was not another animal? You saw me, didn't you?"

If Eiro was seen, then that might be dangerous. The people at the town before also seemed nice enough, but then they turned out to be horrible creatures that couldn't be trusted. If the Imp was seen, he might have to kill this man...

"Oh, don't worry..." The old man muttered quietly, slowly turning his head toward Eiro, who was now able to see that he really was telling the truth.

Because this old man had a single large scar running across his face. From one eye, over the bridge of the nose to the other eye.

"I can assure you, I did not see you." With another low chuckle, the man turned back toward the wood in his hand and continued to carve into it, while Eiro just stared at his back confused. He really wasn't able to see him?

Confused, the Imp stepped up behind the old man, once more grasping his dagger tightly. It didn't matter whether or not he was actually 'seen', as long as it was known that he was there, this man was dangerous to Eiro and the children.

And so, the Imp just held the dagger in his left hand and chose to push it straight into the back of the old man's neck. But instead of having blood splattered on him like usual, what followed was the sound of metal hitting metal. Eiro didn't really understand what just happened, but it seemed like this old man perfectly defended against an attack in his blindspot with a small carving-knife...

"Now now, at least wait until I helped this little one out, will you?" The old man asked, turning his head to just smile at the Imp, who slowly just stared at him.

Eiro was pretty curious about what the old man was doing, so he just let him do what he wanted for now, and chose to for a moment just watch what would happen next.

And what happened was that the wood was surprisingly quickly carved into different pieces, which the old man joined together with each other, before slowly pouring some sort of white liquid in a bottle onto the Boar's leg. Or rather, what was left of it. It seemed like most of what was supposed to be underneath the knee just wasn't there at all.

Once the Boar seemed to have actually calmed down, the old man pulled some string around the upper part of the Boar's leg and then used another knife he had with him to cut the leg just straight off, leaving what just seemed to be a flat stump underneath the knee.

Eiro at first thouht that the Boar would jump up any moment now because of the pain it was in, but it just simply kept laying there quietly, before the old man ran his hand over the stump and muttered something quietly.

"Naiad, logris urtur krus thul orgum, jiad harr wass. Jiadis Naia." As the old man was speaking, water seemed to slowly be gathering around his palm, slowly covering the wound at the end of the Boar's leg. It seemed like the blood from the wound was slightly mixing with the water, but in the end, the wound was slowly closing itself down.

The old man seemed quite exhausted after that one, but he still continued on. And while he pulled away his right hand, which was still 'holding' the small bubble of slightly red water, his left hand was attaching the wooden leg that was just finished to the not yet fully-closed wound, and then pushed the water back against the place where the wood and the flesh were touching.

Just a few moments later, the old man then held his right hand to the side and let the water flow down his fingers into the ground, while his left hand ran over the wooden leg a few more times, before the old man pushed himself up using both of them and then grabbed the different tools that were laying next to him and placed them into the large box that stood next to him, slowly approaching Eiro when he was done.

Of course the young Demon was confused at what exactly was going on and readied himself to attack the old man, but instead, the old man just turned back around, right toward the boar.

"A Hunter set a trap out here, you see?" He said after a little while, and the Imp slowly turned toward him surprised. But before Eiro could ask a question, the old man already continued. "It happens surprisingly often. People pass through on their travels, set up camps, and as they of course want to eat, also set up traps. Some of them end up not being used for a while, and then aren't taken down. The trap this time around was a rather gruesome one, causing in the scene from before. I didn't think I should let such a beautiful young animal die for naught." The old man chuckled, before slowly pointing his finger forward, where the Boar could be seen slowly standing up.

It didn't seem to be in any major pain right now, even if it wasn't used to walking with this false, wooden leg. Either way, for a moment, the Boar looked at Eiro and the old man, before huffing out air through its nostrils and grunting.

The Imp thought it would come to attack them now, but instead, it just turned around and left into the deeper forest.

"Now then, should we continue on from where we had left off before? Is there a reason you want to kill me?"

Slowly, the Imp just looked at him, up and down a few times, and then sighed. "There is not. My mistake, sorry." Eiro said quite clearly, before looking at the wood in his arms as well as the large chunks still laying on the ground where the old man was carving before.

"Can I take that wood?" He asked, and surprised, the old man nodded his head. "Go right ahead, young man."

Satisfied with that answer, the Imp slowly stepped over there and piled everything onto the sticks in his arms, before he heard the old man speak up again.

"Are those children I am hearing with you?" The old man inquired curiously, and the Imp immediately turned around. "They are. Don't go near them." Eiro told him without a second of hesitation, before the old man simply chuckled.

"Sorry, I was just slightly curious. It's not every day you see children like that travel with a Demon, after all."

The very moment that this man revealed that he knew who, or rather what, Eiro was, he dropped the wood to the ground without hesitation and pushed his mana into the three of swords, trying to attack the old man to get rid of him. He was far too dangerous after all.

But instead of having his throat pierced, the old man simply dodged the Imp's attack with a single step to the side. He immediately turned his body to try and attack him with his dagger and the three of swords at the same time, of course, but once more, the old man simply dodged his attacks with incredibly agility.

For a short while, the Imp nearly completely exhausted the little energy he actually had left in his body, and then just stared at the man with a deep heaving.

"Who... are you..?" Eiro asked, and the old man just put his hands behind his back and shook his head while clicking his tongue.

"Youngsters these days... Don't even have the manners to introduce themselves first..." The old man muttered quietly, while the Imp realized something. He realized what this weird feeling he had about this man was all about.

"My name is Jura, I'm a Prosthetist."

This old man was a Card Owner.